“That’s much better than waking up to a blaring alarm,” she sighed breathlessly, drawing a laugh from him.

“I believe anyone would agree sex is better than an alarm,” his fingers played with her hair as he looked down at her. He was still fully sheathed inside of her, but Siobhan didn’t feel any sort of weirdness or embarrassment.

It all felt so right.

As she looked into those warm eyes of his, however, the weight of the morning started to dull the oh-so-happy edges of her brain. She truly knew nothing about him other than how the others had reacted to his presence. “What do you actually do?”

Angus arched a brow. “What?”

She cleared her throat, her fingers barely brushing over his chest. “You know, a job?” She knew he had to have one, given their opulent surroundings. Either that or he came from old money. There was a lot of that around London.

He rolled off her and Siobhan felt the disconnect immediately, like someone had sucked the warmth out of her body. She thought it was crazy how she had gotten so used to his body in the few short hours they had been together.

“I’m sorry,” she started, hoping she hadn’t scared him away. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“I’m a banker,” he answered, cutting her off. “A damn good one.”

She would expect nothing less. He carried his confidence like she wore her jewelry: proud and not afraid to show it. “Oh.”

He chuckled this time. “So, I didn’t impress you.”

She smiled as she heard the tease in his voice. Good. He wasn’t mad about her prying. “There’s a lot of bankers in this city.”

She felt his hands against her bare skin, his fingers running down her side with such aching precision goosebumps scattered all over her body. “Yeah, but can any of them make you gasp and beg for more?”

Well, that, she could not say for certain. “You are the first one I’ve ever been with.”

“Good,” he stated. “I’ll order breakfast.” He threw the top sheet aside and got up. It was then that he noticed red smears over the pristine white Egyptian cotton sheets. He frowned at her, his ebony brows drawn together, questioning. “Are you...a virgin?”

“Was,” Siobhan countered awkwardly, not keen to discuss the matter.

His lean, handsome face became taut. “You should have warned me, Angel.”

“It felt too private to mention,” Siobhan admitted uncomfortably.

Angus dealt her an incredulous look, then he flung back his dark head and laughed with rich appreciation. “You are funny.”

Funny? She groaned inside yet she felt the sound all the way to her toes. She had never felt such warmth before and especially not with a stranger.

Oh my god! I slept with a virtual—make that, a real—stranger! This was crazy. She wasn’t the type of person that took these kinds of risks, at all.

Angus was talking on the bedside phone in that strange language at a great pace. He sounded like someone accustomed to rapping out instructions.

But what do I know about him? Amazingly good-looking? Check. Chivalrous towards waitresses? Check. Fantastic in bed? Oh, hell, yeah! A widower?

At least the last fact did tell her something about his character. He had been prepared to commit to a future with someone and had gotten married at a reasonably early age, which was unusual.

“You can go on and use the bathroom,” he told her lazily, when he finished the call and noticed she was fidgeting with the rim of the bedsheet. “I have another call to make.”

Siobhan added a plus for tact to his list of attributes. “Ah…the toothbrush?”

He could see her shyness in her transparent eyes. With a soft smile, he pulled on a robe and moved to the door that led to his office, saying, “On the first drawer to the right.”

She waited until he had his back to her before she scrambled out of bed, gathering up the clothes she had been wearing the night before, clutching them. As she raced into the En-suite bathroom she was conscious her body ached even more than it had after the charity mini-marathon she had done with Jaxon the previous year, but in a much better way.

After a quick visit to the toilet, she rifled through at least three first left drawers of the long double sink for the toothbrush, finding it very enlightening the orderly way he kept his toiletries—expensive ones, at that, some she had only heard about on TV or read in those fancy magazines—with at least a spare of each item, until she found a toothbrush—or rather three new toothbrushes.

After brushing her teeth, she entered the huge shower stall to find it was digitally operated. Since she couldn’t understand the instructions written in that godforsaken language of his, she couldn’t work out how to use it, and made do with washing at the sink as best she could.

A stranger stared back at her, wide-eyed despite the lack of sleep, her lips plump and pink from his attention, and her usually restrained hair coiled and wild with abandon. She looked wanton, thoroughly ravished, and a million miles away from the woman who left the party yesterday feeling humiliated.

Tentatively, almost experimentally, she put the fingers of one hand to her lips, felt their still tender flesh, traced the now blurred line where they melded into the rest of her face.

She dragged in a breath, the fresh memories of his amazing lovemaking still sparking off thrills in her body like tiny aftershocks.

While she brushed her hair, she was certain of one thing: if given the chance to go back to the previous night and decide again, she would still choose to stay with him and experience what had followed.

Only when she no longer had any excuse to linger did she emerge from the bedroom, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of two maids in dark blue uniforms with frilly aprons and frilly hair caps, carrying women’s clothes on hangers.

One of the women smiled and in heavily-accented English said, “Clean clothes.”

She had never been more conscious of herself than when she was standing there still garbed in her wrinkled work clothes while it was clear he had the habit of receiving women in his house for one-night stands. She could feel shame and anger battling their way to her face. She raised her chin a notch. “Mine are fine.”

“But, miss, His Roy—”

“Thank you, but no,” she interrupted the maid in a firm tone but with a smile since they weren’t responsible for their employer’s promiscuity. “Mr. ah…” Crap. What is his surname? “Where is Angus?”

The maids exchanged a look but with a shrug the younger one directed her through the house—which was even more opulent than she had imagined—to what Siobhan supposed was the dining room.

A waiter was there, presiding over a sideboard stacked with a wide selection of food, and Siobhan was astonished by the concept of anyone having two maids, a waiter, a driver and who knows what else, only to himself.

The long mahogany table was set for two but the breakfast service suggested he was waiting for an army to arrive.

Her wide eyes swiveled across the room to find Angus poised by the window, talking on his cell phone.

Her tummy gave an uneasy lurch as if she were under threat. She didn’t know how to behave or what to say to him.

With a wave of his hand, Angus dismissed the waiter.

It was obvious to her that ordering people around came very naturally to Angus, and it made her feel more like a fish out of water than ever. Her face flushed as she carefully avoided a direct meeting with his thickly lashed golden eyes. Siobhan wiped her palms down the sides of her fitted black skirt.

He looked sinfully beautiful, but cool and remote still talking on the phone, with another authoritative wave of his hand, he motioned for her to sit and start breakfast.

Proof, if she’d really needed it, that she was nothing more to him than a distraction from his billionaire life.

* * *

Angus watched as Siobhan casually plucked a strawberry from a platter of fruit, and put it to her mouth—and then…nothing. She didn’t bite it. She didn’t put it down. She just held it there, partially in her mouth. He found it ridiculously erotic and hard to look away. She was utterly distracting and he needed to address the situation being relayed to him on the phone.

“My opinion? In a nutshell? Sack the whole team. They’ve had their chance and blown it. I won’t accept excuses for poor performance,” Angus advised without hesitation. “Yes, I will be there as soon as possible.”

He brought the meeting to a close with the cool, economic efficiency that had made him a feared and admired ruler and a living legend in financial circles and risked a glance at Siobhan before making another call. She was finally eating the strawberry. Thank God. He informed his aide-de-camp that he had a change in schedule and had to go back to Lektenstaten immediately. And that was when he was advised that his mother was inside his home—there in London, where Siobhan was eating a strawberry with her hands—planning small receptions for him to meet a bride.

“You can share my schedule with her and she can plan all she wants. But I’m under no obligations,” he told his aide-de-camp and ended the call on his cell phone. With a sigh, he muttered, “This day is quickly going to hell. Can just one thing go right today?”

“Angus?”

He spun toward the sound of his name and there was his answer. One thing that could’ve gone very right today, given the chance. But that was shot to hell by the bloody soccer team he’d been talked into investing in.

“Siobhan. Lovely, delectable Siobhan,” he said, quickly approaching her and placing his hands on her cheeks and kissing her scrunched up mouth, tasting the strawberry and the unique essence that was pure Siobhan.

Oh, so I’m not completely forgotten.

He was so tempted to let her distract him from business. And from his mother and her meddling plans to marry him off. But he couldn’t. Not now.

Releasing her face, he said, “As you may have heard, I have pressing business to attend to. And it won’t do to have my mother find you here. I’ll explain later. My driver will take you home.”

“There’s no need—”

His arrogantly raised palm interrupted whatever she was going to say. He entered his private number on her cell phone and tucked it back in her bag.

“I don’t finish until six tonight. How about I call you once I’m home?”

When he looked at her, she glimpsed something in his eyes, something warm and maybe a little sad. Then he blinked and whatever she’d seen was gone.

“Impossible.” He shook his head and looked down at his cell phone, texting an answer to another incoming message. “I can’t see you tonight.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, trying desperately not to show on her face how disappointed she felt. Not forgotten, but not important either. “I’ve got a late shift tomorrow, but how about Wednesday, then?”

He just gave a toss of his head and opened the door, saying, “No. Not then. As soon as I am back in London, I will call you. I’m sorry but I really have to go now.”

“You’re leaving?”

But he had already left.

Definitely not important.